Why Clicking On This Cute Puppy Could Cost You $3,000

It sounds like Cruella de Vil is still out there, and now she’s doing internet scams. Some Mensa-level scoundrels realized that even if people had stopped shelling out to help Nigerian princes, they’d never say no to a cute puppy.

A Colorado teen said she found an advertisement on Dog.oodle.com for a Siberian Husky puppy for just $320. Kelly Bohrer, 19, bought the dog and got a registration certificate, but a few days later she was asked for $1,600 for insurance to ship the puppy, and then another thousand for vaccinations, and finally $4,500 to get the dog out of “puppy quarantine.” She never got the puppy, and instead she called the cops, according to CBS4.

It turns out the registration certificate was a fake certificate from a real company, American Pet Registry. The company says it’s gotten about 10 complaints about the scam from people all over the country, and the FBI says it’s seen this scam thousands of times, but this is the first time they’ve see it with a puppy. CBS4 has found the same puppy for sale in Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Maybe Horace and Jasper and their fingerless gloves have resorted to cybercrime after the fur market dried up.